World Athletics’ radical decision to become the first sport to award prize money to Olympic gold medallists came as a bolt from the blue – but it also carried the subtlety of a bare-chested strongman swinging a fairground sledgehammer.
This was a move designed to poke at the International Olympic Committee’s tenderest regions, by highlighting the fact in the 128-year history of the Games it has never paid its stars to compete in the biggest sporting show of all. Judging by the IOC’s terse response, it worked too.
The fact that World Athletics’ president Sebastian Coe didn’t speak to IOC president Thomas Bach in advance – and that Coe is an expected candidate when Bach’s job comes up for election next year – will not have gone unnoticed in the corridors of Lausanne either.
Some were quick to ask whether paying $50,000 (£40,000) to every gold track and field gold medallist might damage the Olympic spirit? But that, rightly, was dismissed by Coe. Top athletes, after all, have been given money from sponsors for competing at the Games for decades – while 60% of National Olympic Committees give bonuses to their athletes too. Yes, this was a radical gesture. But it also trod on a well-worn path.
The notion that having prize money could turn the Olympics into just another event also seems unlikely. When I spoke to Karsten Warholm, the reigning Olympic 400m hurdles champion, he made it clear that glory mattered far more than greenbacks.
“It doesn’t change my motivation,” he said. “To me an Olympic gold medal is personally worth much much more than all the money ever. But I think it’s a good move by World Athletics. The signal is even better than the actual sum of money.”
Most athletes, I suspect, would agree. So how should we interpret World Athletics’ announcement? First, it is a welcome acknowledgment that without the athletes the Olympics would be nothing. They are the starring cast, not the sharp-suited bureaucrats and per diem hangers-on you see at every Olympics.
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Second, don’t necessarily expect other international sports to follow suit. Most simply don’t have the $2.4m in funds that it will cost World Athletics.
Finally, it is worth pointing out that Coe – who used to be a Conservative party whip – was also playing very smart politics. Between 2017 and 2021, the IOC made $7.6bn in revenue through broadcasting and marketing rights, as well as other income streams. And while the IOC redistributes 90% of its revenue, which amounts to $4.2m every day to sport and athletes, Coe knows that many athletes regard that as not nearly enough.